


Citrus Sobriquet and a Grifter's Grin

by Catatonic



Series: “I’m for women’s rights and I’m Ferris Bueller’s cousin.” [1]
Category: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Genre: 80s, Gen, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:12:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catatonic/pseuds/Catatonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ferris introduces Sloane to his cousin, Joel, a boy with a grifter’s appeal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Citrus Sobriquet and a Grifter's Grin

**Author's Note:**

> Joel Fresca is an OC (original character) I have independantly created for personal, strictly entertainment purposes; for moments I want Ferris Bueller to have a really ridiculous (non-immediate) relative, and for occasional vicarious fulfillment in the 'Bueller-verse'. Enjoy at your own risk.

Sloane Peterson was coming up the hallway, on her way to the lockers. She put certain of her books away and when she shut the door, Ferris was on the other side of it. He abruptly stopped her.

"Sloane," he put a hand on her shoulders, "I’d like you to meet Joel. “He's gonna be in town over Spring Break.”

"Hello," she said, smiling.

"Joel, this lovely lady is Miss Peterson." Sloane narrowed her eyes at Ferris, that reserved smirk she frequently wore, tweaked.

"Hello," said the blonde-headed boy.  By birth, it is important you should know, Joel was in fact a rust-infused brown -- 'auburn' as he preferred to refer to it.  Many sunny mornings, back in California, were spent bleaching his hair to this desired yellow he had achieved, and has become quite accustomed to.  In fact, he had mostly forgotten he was ever not blonde.  Comfortable, soft, gold strands.  Matched his mellow, clever, eyes.

Joel thought Sloane pretty cute.  Joel wasn’t very ‘attracted’ to most any person.  He most definitely acknowledged whether or not they were pleasant to look at.  He knew a beauty when he saw one.

Joel was a couple of months older than Ferris and perhaps was lacking in a few of the latter's boyish charms.

"Oh," Joel started to speak again.  "I forgot the Fresca."

Sloane looked at Ferris, confused. Her next class was in ten minutes -- just three more days of school -- Falling behind hadn't been on her to-do list.

"Drinks. .?" said Sloane unsure. 

"Joel Fresca," he extended his hand more formerly than he had only just before.  "Fresca, surname."  He chuckled humbly, yet it was a hubristic one.

Their was an unorthodox gap, or a chip, between the lateral incisor and the neighbouring Cuspid behind Fresca’s thin, white, lips.

"And how did you meet my Ferris?” said Sloane, "if it’s all right to ask?"

Ferris interceded.  “He’s my cousin,” laughing. “My father’s sister’s only son or daughter. . .not that Joel’s a girl!  For heaven’s sake, no that’s not — "

"Fer-ris." said Joel. 

Sloane covered her grin with a cupped palm.

"I did it again, didn’t I?"  A melodramatic heartbreak.  "Sorry, 'cuz,” said Ferris, and shrugged with hallmark (likeable) mannerism.

“No biggie, Ferry-baby.” Joel clapped him on the back. “Catch ya' later, Sloane!” he called after her brisk foot falls.

Joel gave Ferris a well-earned noogie; they had not seen each other in three years.  Joel was ecstatic to be able to hang with _Ferris Bueller_ again.

Joel breezed back through the hallway, past Rooney's office, past the scrutinising eye of secretary Grace -- who had dropped a pencil in bringing Ed his much needed triple-shot mocha.  Grace wished she could have gotten a better proof of "this rusher," as she went inside the office, speaking to Rooney.  The grouchy principle started to get irrational and Grace soothed that it was merely excitement. Anticipation of the nearing holiday.

____

Fresca was as self-conscious as every teenage person becomes — The persons who were not referred to as Ferris Bueller.  There was no bourgeois for Joel Fresca.  His ideas of himself were only either extremely high or extremely low.  Low is not to say Fresca did not posses confidence.  He had confidence. . .in procuring confidence in himself, or rather, in applying and conveying what felt and looked like confidence.  On the other hand, maybe the roving confidence, the fickle self-satisfaction, and the gratuitous gratifications was false pride — Zero confidence, ineptitude of self-assurance, -- a stress-relieving exercise, all parading around as a colour confused product of a mask maker.

He was not a person of any one mention.  Plain, short, haircut.  Average build.  Close to the exact height of his popular cousin. About 5'8''.  Pizza parlours and Saturday television epics. 

He chose to make plenty of impersonal friends, and he haphazardly created folks who would praise and, if necessity had arisen, carry him to the end of the earth and then some.  He had a wit that whipped, an optionally sharp tongue, and an intellect that stung in the most unusual of places.  He had enemies, but he cared not to think of them as so.  He cared not to think of them at all.  Some of the enemies shared his home addresses.

He cursed a lot, and got excited on average, but his hand stayed ever gentle.  Joel’s intentions and thought process were incapable of pretension, even under falsehood of personal information given.  He was comfortable, filling other’s sandals.  He was an avid role-player during those long past pre-teen years.  His own sandals were pretty easy to wear — but of course he bought those, second hand. 

Joel would often talk to himself, and on odd days, drift, into lengthy conversations between two unseen individuals.  Sometimes one of the two individuals was an imagined, perfected, self. And sometimes the individuals were simply that — individuals.  Characters in a psychological play.

He spoke (only at times) with an untraceable accent.  Think of an American, an impressionable American youth — a kid who likewise tries to impress, and all but flawlessly captured the cadence of the fifty states, plus a small surplus of some of the English-speaking countries of the globe.  He liked people asking where he was from; as mush as he liked telling them.

Joel's father is a corporate marketer and the job, from time to time, required much uprooting, and has always merited many travels.   Joel's mother is a working women.  High end Fashions.  Joel loved to make deals, lead odd jobs, and together the household wrought a robust income.  Bethany Bueller-Keith, Keith Keith, and Joel Keith.  He wasn't always Fresca.  He'd take it to court, legalise it -- sure -- but that was long after it had been a spurious title, a fancy, derived from a free man's will to diverge, purge, and identify with his favourite beverage.

One day Joel's father decided to uproot himself once and for good.  Left behind a wife and then eleven son.  Joel.

The 'quality' years with Beth didn't forge any stronger bond with her son.  Her husband's absence was a lever to her business prospects, and she could now spend what free time she gathered to spend with girlfriends.  Joel continued to grow more distant, more indignant, and was ever increasingly disregarded.  His mother wasn't violent, or noticeably mean -- Even during her son's terrible two's she never had been known to hit or rant or shout about, neither to acquaintances nor to family.  But she was numb, narrow minded, easily content, and was rather self-centred. 

There's nothing much to say about Keith Keith.  There wasn't much too him.  His pockets were deep and his counsel was shallow.  He cared until he didn't care.  The only memory, aspect, thing, Fresca held in dear connection to his father, were the pair of dark teal wrap-around sunglasses Keith had treasured -- so much so that he left them behind without a bloody clue.  As far as he could tell, Joel knew he had always coveted this pair of his father's shades.  He thought about swiping them through all of kindergarten.  This fortuitous event of Keith's was a most fortunate one for Joel.

Joel had run for class president at every school he had ever attended.  He wanted others to like him, perhaps as much as he liked himself last Tuesday, the Tuesday he was granted most creative textual diction, the same Tuesday he had been the first secondary school student to receive an A in chemistry that semester.  He was paranoid of criticisms, but he brushed them away all in one sweep.  He thought about his actions; other’s actions; about what he said; what he chose to say; how he chose to say them; and how his mouth formed when the words came out.  It was pretty cool to be “emotionally intelligent”, but it was also pretty goddamn annoying.  _Why can’t I be like every other dude?_   He couldn’t drink a glass of non-dairy milk without thinking how the world might end, should he entertain the idea of being a romanticised gangster.  He called himself a rebel, a non conformist -- an afterthought of humanity.  He hated humanity (what was left of it).  He hated himself more.  He hated that he hated himself, and the very fact that he hated that he hated himself.  He cherished waning moments when he felt genuinely good about himself.  When he’d sit up in bed, he hated that too.  Despite smarts, and money attained, Fresca was a failure.  He was a failure at the game of life.  He spent countless sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that he was deserving of slack as any anyone else. “Maybe more so”, he admitted cynically.  He was reminded through the subtleties of existence that he was no different than the other pawns.  Pain and pleasure wasn’t the dichotomy it was painted to be.  No amount of external other-wises, no amount of kind acts, fun had by all, nothing, would ever change his outcome.  Roll the dice.  Time sucks; refuelling, eating and resting sucks.  Every fibre of being sucks.  To wit, he would never objectively care for himself.  Nor for his surroundings _,_ really.  _The sun in SoCal felt pretty nifty on the skin._

He took a look at the front of the highschool -- He soaked up the image, analysed it -- before hurdling into his Sbarro (Rolls-Royce) Camargue.  He also burnt his hands on the door rail.

Fresca shook his head, thinking of what Bueller had been up to all these years apart.  He squinted into the sunshine, it's beams unveiling the rust in his hair along with the single daub of freckles that were remarkably like Ferris', in placement and appearance. _Why should I admire my friends so strongly?_ But he did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
